


eternity

by coffeepot418



Series: canon but theres magic (dragon year babies) [1]
Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: 00z are a little chaotic and i love them for it, Bromance, Friendship, M/M, Magic, Mutual Pining, Time Loop, Time Travel, Unrequited Love, lil bit of angst, lolllllllllll kind of, san loves his members a lot and it shows, theres just a lot of love all around, yeosang is so smol my heart hurts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:15:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26031013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeepot418/pseuds/coffeepot418
Summary: Some unnamed number of loops later, San wakes up in the KQ dorms, and sits up to see Yunho squinting at him. His heart sits heavy in his stomach. “Where’s Wooyoung?” he asks.“Who?”
Relationships: Choi San & Jung Wooyoung, Choi San/Jung Wooyoung (unrequited), Jung Wooyoung/Kang Yeosang
Series: canon but theres magic (dragon year babies) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1891495
Comments: 9
Kudos: 89





	eternity

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer idk anything abt junyoung so i didnt write him in the predebut stuff, sorry :// i mean if you squint you can pretend he was just off screen. also. timeline might be fuzzy? i forget dates very easily. clearly writing a time travel fic was a great idea
> 
> anyway. wrote this in a day! procrastinating a big fic that im 50k into and heavily writers blocked on lol
> 
> Minor CW: at some point they time travel to early high school, and san (who is physically underage but mentally 21-ish) goes on a date with an also underage girl, it’s just a sentence but i thought i should warn anyway. Also they mention covid a few times but it’s not discussed seriously.
> 
> This is fiction! Don’t take my interpretation of their history to be correct. Because it's not. 
> 
> If you have the time and resources please take a look at this carrd--there are several translations available and links to help other causes as well as BLM including Stand with Hong Kong, Free Palestine, and the Yemen Crisis. https://biglink.to/blmcarrds

At this point it’s just tiring.

He feels the tug in his gut and can tell Wooyoung feels the same, by the grimace that takes over his face. They both stop moving abruptly, the others nearly crashing into them. "Until next time," Wooyoung calls out to him, and the rest of the members turn to ask him what he’s talking about because they’re in the middle of a fucking dance practice, Wooyoung, what _next time,_ but before Hongjoong can get any more worked up, San’s losing consciousness, and he promptly falls asleep.

-

It started on some innocuous day—San can barely remember by now, because they never make it back to that point. It was a fansign, he thinks, but Wooyoung insists it was during their break. Maybe they started looping at different points, San suggests, but Wooyoung shoots that down because if they started at different points, they wouldn’t be looping together. It was 2020. That’s all they know.

Heedless of when it started, they can both agree on when they’d jumped _to_. Wonderland promotions. So, not too far back, at least at first. 

They both came to in the middle of a performance, stumbling _hard,_ but it’s just the Studio Choom video and not a live audience so they just get slapped on the wrist and accused of attempting a prank, instead of the fallback that would have happened if they were live. Yunho manages to keep Hongjoong away from them, as their leader’s already stressed with doing Mingi’s part as well as his own, and the staff asks them if there’s something wrong. 

Wooyoung looks at him. San looks back. They’re both confused, San can tell, so they’re probably in the same boat. Hopefully in the same boat. "No," he says, squeezing Wooyoung’s hand. He hopes it’s comforting. He’s very discomfited himself, so it might just come across as stressed. "We’re just tired. Sorry."

Across the room, Yeosang turns away and pretends he wasn’t staring. 

"What happened?" Wooyoung whispers, dragging San out for a "bathroom break" when the staff gives them ten minutes to recover from, quote, 'whatever it was that made them mess up so badly at the same time'.

"I don’t know," San says. "But this—we already did this." They’re a year in the past. _They’re a year in the past._ He has a brief moment of thankfulness that Wooyoung’s there too, that he’s not alone. 

"We’re on our third full length album," Wooyoung agrees, too loud, and San shushes him. "We did a really fucking awesome performance and won an award at a MAMA that hasn’t happened yet," Wooyoung continues, quieter. "We published _several_ songs after this—we’ve been done with Wonderland for _months_."

"I know," San says. He can’t think like this, he doesn’t know what the hell to do, he feels so lost. Everything’s weird but familiar and yup there’s Yeosang rounding the corner, and Wooyoung’s looking like a kicked puppy because Yeosang won’t look at him. San stops him before he goes off and puts his foot in his mouth. “You haven’t had the talk, remember?”

"I know." Wooyoung scowls. "I could talk to him now—"

"You know that’s how paradoxes happen, right? You talk to him, the you that came here never existed, so you can’t talk to him, so you never have the talk, so you come back here, and talk to him, which wipes you from existence." San has to pause to think back on that one. He’s confused himself. Time travel… it’s only just starting to sink in. 

Wooyoung doesn’t even bother trying to parse it. "But I—"

"We don’t know how much we can change," San warns. "Don’t risk it, Wooyoung. You can’t."

And really, he doubts it’d go well if Wooyoung just cornered Yeosang out of the blue. Yeosang had been ready, last time, to talk about his feelings. San doubts he’s ready now. Three months _does_ make a difference.

He gets an agreement out of Wooyoung eventually. They can’t do things exactly the same, but they try their best. They don’t talk about it after that, except to exchange knowing glances whenever something big happens. They get through Wonderland and do the MAMA performance and cry again when they get the award and Wooyoung talks to Yeosang and they mend their friendship, and they almost get through Answer promotions when—

-

("I kind of miss them," Wooyoung says. "Like, we see them all the time, but…"

"It’s not the same," San agrees. " _They’re_ not the same."

"I miss them," Wooyoung repeats, frowning at the sky. 

"I miss them too.") 

-

"Dammit," San mumbles, prodding his swollen ankle. Luckily no one else got hurt. They’re back at Studio Choom, in their Wonderland outfits, and Wooyoung looks one word away from a meltdown. 

"I’m not doing this again," he says, stripping off the jacket and dropping down to sit at San’s feet. Well, foot, considering he’s elevating the other one. “You’ve already changed something,” he points out before San can even open his mouth.

"It’s not like I did it on purpose!" San protests. "We—we got here at the end of the song, there’s some dangerous choreo—"

"It’s not—"

"It’s dangerous if you come into consciousness in the middle of it!"

"Okay," Wooyoung concedes, and tugs at his hair. They watch Hongjoong practice Mingi’s part in tense silence until Wooyoung breaks it. “This is definitely not normal.”

"No," San agrees. "Last I checked it was 2020. Twice over."

"What if we warn people about corona—"

"They’re going to think we’re insane," San says. " _I_ think we’re insane."

"We’re not insane," Wooyoung says. "There’s no way both of us are having the same delusions. And last time we knew what was going to happen before it happened, _how_ is that even _possible_?"

"I don’t know," San says. "What if we told Hongjoong-hyung…?"

Wooyoung points. Hongjoong’s now sitting with his head between his knees, mumbling lyrics to himself. His hair is supposed to be slicked back but half of it is standing on end, like he had an unfortunate encounter with some electricity, or he’s nervously run his hands through it ten too many times. Whenever Yunho or Seonghwa tries to approach him, he gives them a dirty side-eye and curls further in on himself like a roly poly. 

"Ah," San says. He vaguely recalls Hongjoong nearly burning himself out around Wonderland time. "Nevermind."

"Maybe Seonghwa-hyung," Wooyoung proposes. 

San shakes his head vehemently. "I love him, but then we’d just have three idiots trying to figure this out instead of two."

Wooyoung grimaces. "You make good points. But if we keep looping, we can try asking them one by one?"

"True." San squints out at the other members consideringly. "Youngest first?"

"Youngest first," Wooyoung agrees. 

Jongho’s awfully cagey when Wooyoung tries to corner him. San would help, but he’s supposed to be resting his ankle in the hopes that he’ll be able to do the dance for at least one good take. (It’s definitely not broken, thank god, but it still hurts to walk.) 

Anyway, Jongho manages to hide behind Hongjoong, then Yeosang, then Seonghwa, all of whom cause problems. 

Hongjoong tries to yell at them both for fucking around, but Yunho hurriedly swoops in out of nowhere to wrap him in a blanket like an angry burrito and carry him off to his own personal isolation corner with water and snacks. 

Yeosang is in a constant state of mildly-irritated-with-Wooyoung, because again, they haven’t talked about The Woosang Conundrum by this point, so he helps Jongho in his insistence of playing keep-away. 

When Yeosang’s called away by Yunho to help wrangle their squirming leader, Jongho retreats strategically to Seonghwa, who demands to be let in on the Woosan shenanigans, as per his brand, as payment for his help. 

So they can’t quite get Jongho alone until they get back to the dorms. Mingi makes an appearance in the common area for some bro time with Yunho, which means when Jongho slinks off to his room, he’ll be alone, and Wooyoung and San can stealthily lock him in with them to talk. 

"Have you seen One More Time?" Is how Wooyoung chooses to open the subject. 

Both San and Jongho turn to stare at him. "Ignore him," San says, covering Wooyoung’s mouth with his hand. Wooyoung licks it, but he underestimates how used to him San is, because San doesn’t budge. "If you were stuck in a time loop, what would you do to get out?"

Jongho blinks at them for several more seconds. "Uhh…?"

"That’s why I slipped today," San says. Fuck it, all in. How else do you break it to your friends that this is the third time you’ve lived this life? "It was 2020, and then it wasn’t."

"How do you know it’s a loop, and not just a jump?" Jongho asks, and really? He’s accepting it just like that? San expected to have to do more convincing. Mingi would probably believe them right away, but Jongho always struck him as a skeptic. Oh well. He isn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"It’s happened twice," Wooyoung provides, after biting San’s hand to get him to let go. San isn’t even surprised. "The first time we just thought maybe it would go back to normal, and that we shouldn’t change anything at risk of a paradox, but we looped back from an earlier point than we started."

"Hm," Jongho says. He squints at them. "Is there something life changing that happened when you first started?"

"Not that we know of," San says. “Maybe something happened with the group that we don’t know about?"

"Maybe," Wooyoung agrees. "The company’s pretty transparent with us, though…"

Jongho nods. "But you can’t think of anything for sure that you might need to change while you’re here?"

Wooyoung fidgets. 

"No," San says, pretending he didn’t see. The Woosang Problem gets resolved down the road, fixing it now wouldn’t change anything in the long run. It’s definitely not important enough that the universe would somehow decide to send them into a time loop. "We’re happy with where we are. Were? Will be?"

Jongho frowns. "I don’t know, then. If it’s the same loop, then maybe there’s something someone wants you to notice."

Technically it’s the same loop, San supposes. They first came back from Inception to Wonderland, then from Answer to Wonderland. Maybe the universe is just narrowing it down for them. "That does seem plausible," San says slowly. "But what could we possibly—" he cuts himself off, hand flying to his stomach. There’s a tug in his gut. "Wooyoung—"

"I feel it," Wooyoung says. "San, what the h—"

But San falls asleep.

-

("How did you know?"

"Hm?"

"That you love me. How did you know?"

"Oh. Ah, I think… with the others, you know I love them too, and I would do anything for them. But with you…" he laughs, hums, ' _you are my soulmate_ '. "I don’t know. With you I feel more at peace with myself. When I’m with you it feels like I’m home."

"You know I love you too, right? Not in the same way, but I do. Love you."

"Yeah. I know.")

-

"Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me."

They’d jolted awake from actual sleep, thankfully together, in a dark room. Neither of them had recognized it at first, but upon further inspection… definitely the house they stayed in while training in America. Which means they looped back to predebut. 

"Quiet," San hisses. "Remember how thin these walls are?"

They’d crammed themselves in the bathroom for some semblance of privacy. San’s now realizing how sketchy that might look, considering how physically close they have to be to each other in the tiny space. He doesn’t _think_ any of their members are particularly touchy about closeness at this point, but they’re at kind of an awkward stage. He hopes if they get discovered it won’t make anything weird.

"It’s 2018," Wooyoung says, and he’s definitely getting slightly hysterical. "We’re _two years_ in the past."

"And Jongho’s suggestion’s been proven wrong," San mumbles. "We’re not repeating the same loop. Though maybe there’s several things we have to see…? We should try again. Talking to someone."

"Do we really want to be asking nineteen year old Mingi what he thinks we should do to get out of a time loop?" Wooyoung asks, miraculously the voice of reason.

"Nineteen year old Mingi isn’t going to be any worse than twenty-one year old Mingi."

"I never said I thought twenty-one year old Mingi would be any help," Wooyoung says. "Jongho, Yunho, and Hongjoong were always going to be our best bets."

"Yunho?" San squints at him. "Did you hit your head on the way here? I love him, but…"

Wooyoung throws his hands up. "You blacked out the same as me, if I hit my head then you did too. Think about it. Jongho was a bust, Hongjoong is always too stressed and our problems might send him to the ER, and when Jongho isn’t carrying the collective braincell he gives it to Yunho."

"Bold of you to assume we _have_ a collective braincell," San says. Wooyoung can’t disagree. 

In the end, they do go to Yunho. 

Unfortunately, with the cameras in the house, they have to wait until they’re out to do it, and when they’re out they’re being followed by staff with cameras and also are holding cameras themselves, so it’s still very hard to get Yunho alone. 

San notices Jongho squinting at them suspiciously at breakfast, and tugs on Wooyoung’s sleeve. "Do you think he remembers?"

Wooyoung follows his gaze. "What? Jongho? We looped to earlier than we told him, how would he remember? To him we never had that conversation. We’re probably just acting weird for 2018-us, and like I said, you _know_ he’s usually the one with the brain cell."

"Oh. Yeah." Thinking linearly and nonlinearly at the same time is giving him a headache. He’s pretty sure human minds aren’t supposed to comprehend the passage of time like this.

They finally manage it at Universal, dragging a protesting Yunho away from the food cart he was headed towards and letting the staff know they’re headed for the bathroom. With any luck, there won’t be any Korean speakers inside. 

"Have you seen One More Time?" Wooyoung asks, and San almost hits him. They really should have come up with a plan of attack beforehand that _doesn’t_ include comparing their situation to a romance drama where the main character’s supposed to save his girlfriend from certain death, or whatever. San wouldn’t know. He hasn’t seen the drama, he just looked it up after the first time Wooyoung brought it up.

"Yeah," Yunho says, confused. "The one about the guy in the band, right?"

"HA!" Wooyoung waves his hands in the air in triumph, almost nailing both San and Yunho in the face. "So, San and I are Tan, got it?"

"I have no idea what he’s talking about, but it’s probably wrong," San tells Yunho, but it’s too late because his eyes have gotten big and excited and he’s practically vibrating. 

There’s a flush, and a kid comes out of a stall and leaves without washing his hands, giving them all a judgemental look. San gives him a judgemental look right back. _In two years, everyone will be washing their hands,_ he reminds himself.

…The thought’s not exactly comforting. 

"You’re trapped in a time loop?" Yunho asks excitedly, having not noticed the kid, and wow. Okay. Maybe San should just let Wooyoung talk, if that’s how easy it’ll be.

"It’s not really a time loop," San says, when Wooyoung doesn’t answer. He seems to be considering the question. "We repeated one thing twice, but now we’re back here, which is new. So it’s really more like time slips?"

"That’s so awesome," Yunho says, and they can tell he means it. "Wait, you’re from the future then? How far? Did we debut? Do we have fans?"

And fuck, San remembers this. The hope, the determination that people _have_ to like them, they’ll train and do better than their best and work and _work_ for debut but their success depends on the audience, and the audience can be fickle. There is no certainty until it happens. So many groups reach and reach for the success of their predecessors to no avail. So many groups get lost in the sea of names that don’t make it. But Ateez was stubborn. They wanted to see it through. So they worked hard, and thankfully it paid off.

"Yeah," San says, before he can think twice about it. He can’t hold back his smile at the thought, remembering how confident all of them get in 2020, how comfortable in their own skin. How much love they have for Atiny, and how much love Atiny give them back.

Wooyoung doesn’t get mad at him for being a hypocrite and potentially creating a paradox by telling Yunho this, instead reaching out to hold San’s hand. "Yeah," he echoes. "We debuted. And we have fans. A lot of fans."

Yunho beams, and promises to think of solutions to their problem so they can go back to their debuted group and fans and music that’s _theirs,_ and they leave the bathroom, ignoring the questioning looks from the other members. 

Along the way out of the Harry Potter section, someone asks Yunho why he’s so happy all of the sudden. "Thinking about the future," he says with a smile, and doesn’t elaborate. Wooyoung reaches over and side-hugs San, who understands without speaking what he’s trying to say. 

The rest of the trip goes as it did before. Yunho sometimes leans over to ask if San or Wooyoung knows what’s about to happen, and while they don’t quite get the details right, they remember the gist. San’s so swept up in Yunho knowing, that he almost forgets to drink his water on the roller coaster—they can’t not have that iconic moment. Wooyoung laughs at him after, because he did it a little later than he did it the first time, and this time, the ride’s camera caught the moment. "More evidence for the fans to remember you by, Water Coaster," he teases. San just sighs.

He also stumbles a little when Yeosang quietly asks him where Shiber is, since he’d been talking about bringing him all of yesterday. He doesn’t really remember how he responded, but Yeosang seems satisfied, so he walks away from that conversation quickly, mentally berating himself for forgetting.

Speaking of Yeosang, Wooyoung clings to him a bit more than he did the first time around. According to Wooyoung’s account of future-Yeosang’s side of the argument, he hadn’t really started to get upset until somewhere in the middle of Codename is Ateez, so maybe Wooyoung’s attempting to bring them closer so they don’t fall apart as hard. San can’t blame him. 

"We’ve gotten extraordinarily lucky with people believing us," San says, when they’re back in the house and have a bit of free time. The cameras are still recording (they’re always recording) but the production crew said it doesn’t matter if they’re quiet and uninteresting at this point. They just have to make sure their words aren’t picked up by the mics.

Wooyoung nods. He’s sleepy, even if he’s trying not to show it. "Hongjoong won’t believe us," he says. 

As much as San wants to protest, he knows it’s true. Hongjoong isn’t the kind of person to believe in extranormal stuff, even if he plays up reactions for the camera—it’s an open secret among the members that he thought the card reading was bullshit. Seonghwa sulked for days, which is a whole other can of worms that San doesn’t want to even think about. 

Maybe they could ask a later version of Hongjoong about the exact day he wrote each song, and if they flex the knowledge in another loop, he might believe them. Though he might just assume they snooped, which is much more plausible than one’s dongsaengs suddenly time traveling. 

So far Yunho hasn’t been much help, but to be fair to him, he’s definitely researching because he’s been in the corner staring raptly at his phone for the past hour. Hongjoong actually went and asked him if he’s okay, since he kind of retreated into himself the moment they got back, when usually he’d be bugging the others to play games, or something. 

"Dude," San says. "What if we _are_ supposed to warn people about corona. Like, usually there’s supposed to be, like Jongho said, a life altering event. Maybe—"

"Okay, the universe would have chosen a politician if that’s what it wanted," Wooyoung points out. "Especially right now. We’re nobody in 2018. No one would listen to us."

San’s saved from having to respond to that by Yunho, who bounds over brimming with excitement and time loop facts. 

San gives it to him, he does try his best. But there’s only so many kdrama plots he can hear before he gets down on his knees to beg the next loop to take him away. He isn’t going to get together with Wooyoung through their shared experience of stuck-in-time-loop. This isn’t a romance thing.

It’s _not._

"Oh, also," Yunho says, after the end of a small tangent about how if they’re supposed to fall in love, he’ll still love and accept them because there’s nothing wrong with being gay and he hopes they know that. Love is love, etc etc. (Wooyoung’s eyes are misting, and San pretends he doesn’t see him wipe a tear off his face before Yunho notices. It’s just so wholesome and sweet, and wow he loves his roommate—technically, future roommate—so very very much, San definitely doesn’t cry about it later when he’s alone.) "Also, I found a bunch of American movies. Usually the guy in the loop has to stop some big, world-changing event."

 _Corona,_ San mouths exaggeratedly, since Yunho’s distracted by his notes. 

Wooyoung makes the cut throat motion with his hand. _Shut. Up,_ he mouths back.

"Other than that… the most famous one is a time loop where the main character keeps looping until he learns to better himself. So it’s something he had to change about himself." Yunho looks up from his phone, almost nervous, like he’s trying to pass an interview. It’s cute. San’s overcome by the urge to hug him, but they’re still all a little awkward with each other, and while _their_ Yunho, 2020 Yunho, is all for skinship and cuddles, fetus Yunho in front of him might be a little more averse.

"I can definitely think of ways Wooyoung can better himself," San jokes, and Wooyoung slams a pillow onto his head in retaliation. 

"What does _that_ mean," he sputters. "I’m surprised you didn’t make a growing joke—"

San, who’d been about to remove the pillow from his face, drops it back down, muffling the strangled groan that comment wrenches from his throat. "I keep _telling_ you it’s never on purpose, they’re _accidental—_ "

Wooyoung drops his voice and puts on his best San-face. " _Suck on it—_ "

"NOPE!" San isn’t sure he’s ever moved that fast, slapping his hand over Wooyoung’s mouth so hard it probably hurt. Yunho’s looking between them like it’s a tennis match, baffled but amused. San’s sure he gets the gist—Yunho’s made his own fair share of dick jokes, on camera and off—but he’s definitely confused about the exact context. "That’s enough sharing for today. Thanks, Yunho, you’ve been a tremendous help."

"Really?" Yunho beams.

Unfortunately, they don’t get much time to discuss Yunho’s ideas, because the tug makes a reappearance.

"So soon?" Wooyoung bemoans, and that’s the last thing San hears before he falls asleep.

-

("Hey, what if we had a salute."

"Huh?"

"Y’know, like everytime we feel the tug, we say something dramatic. 'See you on the other side', or something."

"What about, like, 'oh no, not again!'"

"..."

"Okay, fine. Until next time?"

"That’s not bad."

"It’s kind of stupid."

"Well…"

"Hey!"

"You said it, not me. ...Ah, shit. There it is."

"Until next time! Come on, it was your idea. Say it!"

"...Until next time.")

-

"Okay," Wooyoung says, yanking San offstage. "That was embarrassing."

They just wrapped up the encore of the last show in the Expedition tour. They’d landed right before Wooyoung’s line in Dancing with Butterfly Wings, and he’d fumbled the words a little bit. San doubts anyone really noticed, but he knows all too well how much you can beat yourself up over a dumb mistake. 

"At least we know now we’re not just going backwards," San says. Wooyoung wraps his arms around himself in lieu of a response. vYou couldn’t have done anything. We jumped, remember? Even if other people say it’s your fault, I know it wasn’t. You know it wasn’t."

"Yeah," Wooyoung mumbles. "I guess."

"So, Yunho’s ideas," San reminds him. "It could be corona…"

"I doubt it," Wooyoung insists. "It’s much more likely we’re supposed to change something about ourselves. Maybe we just didn’t notice something or someone the first time around, or hurt someone, and now we have to fix it."

It sounds like Wooyoung hasn’t abandoned the idea that the loop is to fix the Yeosang Thing. San’s not quite sure it’s that, considering at the point in time they’d started looping, the Yeosang Thing was fully resolved and the two of them were closer than ever. There’s no real reason to change that, unless one of them still harbors secret resentment. 

At that moment someone passes by in the hallway outside the door they’re next to. Wait… Is that…? "Hey, so you know in time loops everything resets, right?" San says, inching closer to the door as he watches Yunho’s progress. "But we’re not in a traditional time loop, we’re jumping all over the place. Do you think our changes stick?"

Wooyoung halts, clearly realizing the implications. If their changes stick, as long as they loop to the future instead of the past, they could build on theories with other members’ help, or leave notes for themselves. "We can check!" He takes off after Yunho, waving him down. 

"Wait, Woo—" And San’s alone. "—young." He allows himself a moment to facepalm.

Wooyoung comes back before San can even gear himself up to follow—how was Wooyoung running? They just finished a concert, San is _tired_ —with bad news.

Yunho doesn’t remember.

So, the loops still reset.

Regardless. Hongjoong’s next (and last) on their list of hopefully helpful friends. They’d both hoped that one of the other two could’ve helped them, but unfortunately not. It’s not like they’re scared of Hongjoong, not really, they just know he’s stressed out of his mind at all times and in the rare moments he finds peace, he doesn’t really want them to be causing chaos. Also... He’s the least likely to believe them. 

Though technically this isn’t _them_ causing chaos. If it were them they’d have stopped it by now. But San digresses.

It doesn’t take long to find him.

"Hey, hyung?" San says, cutting off his exit. 

Immediately, Hongjoong is wary. For good reason, San can admit, but he’s still a little offended. "...what."

"It’s nothing _bad_ ," Wooyoung says. "Why are you saying 'what' like that?"

Hongjoong squints at him. "Did you guys break something?"

"No!"

"I would never, hyung, who do you take me for!"

"You do remember KCon, right?" Hongjoong says drily. 

They glance at each other. Yeah. They remember KCon. Oops? That was mostly Changbin’s fault, though, and Yeonjun was being an enabler. Without them, Wooyoung and San wouldn’t have broken the door. 

Probably.

Maybe.

Okay, no, they probably still would’ve broken something. Probably not the door though.

Wooyoung starts. "Have you seen—"

"No," San interrupts. 

"It went well last time!"

"Well, Yunho likes watching cheesy dramas."

"It’s not _cheesy_ —"

"Did you watch it? For research?"

"I watched it before we time traveled, thanks—"

"Guys," Hongjoong interrupts. They both shut up immediately. "I love you, and i’ll help you with whatever you need help with as long as it isn’t a prank, but I’m literally about to fall asleep—did you say time travel?"

That loop ends about as well as they’d expected. They don’t get kicked off the team, but Hongjoong does strongly insist that the company mandate they attend biweekly psychiatrist sessions, and every time they try to bring time travel up in conversation, he sends them off to an extra session. He’s well meaning, both San and Wooyoung get that, and they don’t hold it against him. Time travel isn’t something most normal people would believe.

It gets old fast though. Even Yunho doesn’t believe them that time around, since Hongjoong has everyone convinced they have some form of paranoia. Jongho, though, indulges them when Hongjoong’s not watching, letting them talk about the loops and not tattling on them. They ask if he believes them and he winks and backs out of the room dramatically. They decide to just pin it on Jongho being Jongho and don’t bother asking again.

Anyway, San loves Hongjoong, both for all the reasons he loves original-timeline Hongjoong _and_ because Hongjoong is, apparently, the only person on the team who has a sane reaction to their teammates cornering them and insisting that time travel’s real and that they’ve done it, _but._ It’s very much unhelpful.

That loop lasts a little longer than the Yunho loop, but not as long as the first loop. Soon (but not soon enough), San feels the tug in his gut, and he wiggles his fingers at Wooyoung across the living room. "We’re gonna time travel now," he says, just to be contrary, and Hongjoong stands, ready to send them off to another session.

But San falls asleep before he can.

-

(The loop they tell Mingi, they eat _so_ much non-diet approved food and end up on a sugar high. San wakes up at one point thinking they’ve looped, but he really just crashed from the high and fell asleep. Wooyoung and Mingi are still awake and giggling, and San has _no_ idea when they got to Jeju, but whatever, he accepts this fate.

The tug comes in the middle of a nice dinner, where Wooyoung is nutting over the food presentation or something, and they both stop short, looking at Mingi. Man, San hopes when they jump they don’t just leave timelines to run on their own, it would be so shitty if Mingi had to get back from Jeju himself and explain where he went and why San and Wooyoung are missing.

"Until next time," San whispers, and he thinks Wooyoung mouths it back before he closes his eyes and falls asleep.)

-

The first loop they wake up apart is hell. 

San recognizes the bedroom as the KQ dorms and when he looks around to get his bearings he spots Yunho, and asks, quietly, where Wooyoung is. 

"Who?"

It’s one of their longer loops, and they, stupidly, forgot to memorize each others' old KaTalk IDs, so they have no way to reach each other. San's almost tempted to walk up to the BigHit building and ask for Jung Wooyoung, but he knows how fruitless that would be, how secret BigHit kept their trainees. BTS would have released Blood Sweat and Tears around this time, so BitHit is probably doubling down security from the sudden influx of popularity. There’s no way for him to get to Wooyoung, and again, given the secrecy BigHit maintains, there's definitely no way for Wooyoung to get to him.

He mopes around as much as KQ will let him, until Hongjoong stages an intervention in one of his first big moves as leader and asks what's wrong and if there’s anything any of them can do to help. San gets his shit together after that, working hard, just like the other three. Seonghwa joins soon after, and San hopes the rest of the time will pass just as quick.

He’s more open this time, more willing to get to know the members. He might have the muscles and vocal chords of the pre-debut version of him, but he knows himself, he knows that the work he does will pay off by 2020. He’s still self-conscious, sometimes, but it’s a far cry from how anxiety-ridden he was as a trainee. With this confidence he doesn’t have much trouble uniting Yunho and Mingi and himself against the hyungs in trivial stuff like chores, establishing ‘99 line as close friends earlier than they had before. 

Then Yeosang joins. 

San remembers the original timeline, how they were all a little wary of a former BigHit trainee joining. Again, BTS is steadily rising, and they’re not sure what to expect. BigHit was an obscure company before, and now they’re becoming big. Big 3 big.

And Yeosang is quiet. He’s unassuming, he doesn’t reach out. It’s easy to assume this is out of a superiority complex, and San doesn’t quite remember if that’s what they thought the first time around but it very well could have been. Yeosang didn’t get close to the ‘99 line until well after Wooyoung joined, another point of contention. 

Not this time. 

The practice room is quiet after the manager leaves, having introduced Yeosang and thus done his part. They don’t have much to do today, and they had planned on just messing around with some songs Hongjoong wrote before the manager popped in witb the announcement. San had honestly forgotten Yeosang would be arriving today. How had he forgotten? He likes to think he’s a good friend, and he loves Yeosang, but somehow… somehow it slipped his mind. He makes a mental note of it, _Yeosang Day,_ right next to the big blaring _Wooyoung Day_ countdown (which he has because he’s going a little bit crazy without his time loop buddy).

"I’m San," San says, stepping forward with a grin. "We’re the same age, so we can be friends, if you want."

Yeosang looks at his hand, outstretched for a shake, and then up to his face. He smiles shyly. "I’d like that."

Yunho bounds up as well, delighted to welcome another potential hyung-annoyance to the ‘99 line, and with that, Yeosang is welcomed into their cult. 

Jongho comes next, and the ‘99s are happy to no longer be the babies. His voice gives Yeosang some anxiety, though, and San’s a little ashamed he didn’t know about it the first time around. This loop, Yeosang comes to him, crawling into his bed and whispering that he’s scared he isn’t going to be good enough again. San does what he can, but more than anything he hopes Wooyoung Day arrives quickly. 

And it does. 

Wooyoung and Yeosang are ecstatic to see each other, but Yeosang hesitates. San remembers this—last time Wooyoung had said hi to the others first, excited for new people as always. Not out of dismissal of Yeosang, though he knows that’s how Yeosang saw it, but out of the want to make a good first impression. There was no malice on either of their parts. Future-Yeosang knows that. 

Present-Yeosang doesn’t. 

Thankfully, this time, Wooyoung rushes forward and hugs Yeosang first, and Yeosang smiles big and genuine, the happiest San’s seen him since 2020. 

The eight of them are closer than they were originally, predebut, and after the long lingering hug that even Yeosang is side-eyeing them for, San and Wooyoung agree without speaking not to talk about the loops this time. Something feels sacred, this loop, like they shouldn’t touch it. San’s pretty sure he and Wooyoung are hoping for the same thing—that this’ll be the end of it, that Wooyoung’s right and the “mistake” they had to fix was accidentally leaving Yeosang out. 

They debut on schedule, and start recording Say My Name, when it happens. They’re not together—San’s recording his part at the KQ building and Wooyoung’s in the dorm with Yeosang—but San keels over in the middle of his line, the tug in his gut almost painful this time. He barely makes out Eden and Hongjoong rushing to check on him when his eyes slide closed, and he falls asleep. 

-

("We can’t get our hopes up like that again," Wooyoung says. San doesn’t know if he’s talking about the loops, or… Wooyoung and Yeosang are close. Very close. He knows that. But how close? "What if we never get out, San?"

"We’ll get out," San promises. He hugs Wooyoung tight, wishing it didn’t hurt so much to see him cry. "I promise.")

-

They tell Seonghwa in a pre-debut loop. Together, the three of them manage to convince Hongjoong (and then the company) that everything will be fine if they take a break, and all eight of them go on a (technically illegal, since none of them have their license) road trip down the coast, stopping at small towns and messing around and being _teenagers_. This loop ends earlier than most, but still late enough that they can enjoy themselves and relax a bit. Still, San thinks. Ironically—he wishes they had more time.

-

("I talked to Yeonjun about time loops, last time around," Wooyoung says. His voice is squeaky, because they’re maybe… ten? San had stolen some money from his mom to take the train up to Wooyoung’s childhood home from his own hometown. His parents won’t be happy when he gets back, but with any luck they won’t notice he was gone and will just think he skipped school with his friends when they get the call. "He said that it’s a super cool concept, and if it happened he’d just test the limits, see how far he can go until reality has enough."

"That’s not particularly helpful," San points out.

Wooyoung shrugs. "Yeah. That’s why I didn’t claim that he gave me any advice."

San’s parents figured out he was responsible for the missing money, but they don’t realize he went all the way up to the Seoul area. He gets yelled at, but he expected that. Then his mom starts crying, because she couldn’t find him and she was so so worried, and San cries too, apologizing over and over. He makes a note to tell Wooyoung that next time they loop back this early, they should just wait for the loop to reset, instead of attempting to reach each other. 

He doesn’t want to hurt her like that ever again.)

-

San kicks his feet in frustration, watching the kids around him play on the playground. He’s about seven, right now, which means no widespread internet, which means no way to get in contact with Wooyoung. He’ll live through this part of his life as much as he can before he inevitably convinces his parents to let him take a day trip up to Seoul. Or maybe buy stock. Naver’s not big yet, right? He doesn’t really follow that kind of stuff. Maybe he should take some notes next time he’s in the later 2010’s, for the longer loops where they’re dirt poor and working their asses off to train on a diet of mostly ramen. 

In any case, he’s tired. School sucks, especially when it’s the nth time around, and he has some nice friends but they’re not Wooyoung. Also, everyone he knows is seven. He doesn’t consider himself to have mentally aged past his age in 2020, but he is kind of stuck as a 21 year old’s brain in a seven year old’s body, and he knows how to sing and do math and drive and write music that touches peoples’ hearts. Meanwhile, he’s pretty sure he just watched his childhood best friend eat literal dirt.

Yeah. He misses Wooyoung.

These loops are the worst. The ones where they _can't_ reach each other—Wooyoung’s in Ilsan and he’s in Namhae, and neither of them are old enough to take the train on their own, much less have the money for it. Like he said before, no widespread internet, and kids don’t really have phones, so no long distance communication for, like, three-ish more years. He’s pretty sure KaTalk was founded around 2010. He might be wrong. Point is, _his_ first phone was around 2010, so that’s when _he'll_ have access to long distance communication.

It’s nice seeing his parents everyday, though, without the impending deadline of having to go back to Seoul for a laundry list of schedules. And his sister—it’s been a while (from his point of view, in linesr time 2020) since all four of them ate dinner together. She’d moved out right after college, so he doesn’t get to see her often. It’s nice, to be all together.

He still misses Wooyoung. 

He takes this time to think about what he knows about the loops. The big trainee loop wasn’t too many loops ago (maybe three? It’s a little fuzzy), so he thinks about that in particular. The evasion when Yeosang asked why Wooyoung left BigHit. How happy Wooyoung was that San had made the effort to change the way Yeosang was welcomed, even though he knows Yeosang’s San’s friend too and San would have done the same even if Wooyoung didn’t adore Yeosang with his whole heart. 

Woosang are good friends, San knows that. (Well, will be, considering they’re all seven years old right now, and therefore shouldn’t know each other.) He also knows that they had (have) a rocky past (future) and Wooyoung wants to do his best to avoid that when he can in the loops. 

But something’s nagging at him. 

He thinks he almost has it, watching more children eat dirt with slight disgust, when he feels the tugging in his gut. "Until next time," he mumbles aloud, and falls face forward off the swing. 

He never hits the ground. 

-

"So," San says, dropping into Wooyoung’s bunk. It’s small and threatens to collapse under San’s not-impressive weight. He wiggles his eyebrows. "Yeosang, huh?"

Wooyoung shrieks and throws a pillow at him, the epitome of a teenager with a secret crush. "Oh my god, shut _up,_ what if he hears you?"

"Relax," San says, rolling his eyes. "I checked the dorm, everyone’s out but you and me and Seonghwa, and he’s cleaning right now. You know how he gets."

Wooyoung nods, but doesn’t look any more at ease. "How did you figure it out?"

"We’ve been looping for the equivalent of decades, probably," San says. vI’d like to think I know you well enough by now."

"And you’re… fine with it?"

That’s a loaded question. For several reasons. Of course San’s fine with Wooyoung being gay, or whatever version of not-straight he is. Wooyoung should know that, San came out to him before the loops even started. But is San fine with Wooyoung liking Yeosang? 

He wishes he could say his discomfort stems from the whole bandmates-are-family idea, that they’re _brothers,_ eight makes one team and the potential for messy breakups isn’t worth the risk, but it doesn’t. He’s mature enough to admit that he’d be being selfish if he said no, if he said he’s not fine with it, stop looking at Yeosang and instead look at _me._

"I’m fine with it," San says. "I’d be a hypocrite if I wasn’t, you know that."

Wooyoung nods. "But liking _him_ —the group—"

"That too." He shakes his head, hides his face in Wooyoung’s arm. He’s scrawny like this. Not as much of a stick as San is, but much less… much _less_ than he will be in 2020. 

"Oh," Wooyoung says. There’s no pity in his voice, which San appreciates. "Oh, Sannie."

"I know," San says, and he did. He does. But a broken heart is a broken heart. 

-

In the next loop, Wooyoung’s back at BigHit. San’s just in high school, though he thinks Hongjoong and Yunho might already be at KQ. 

He gets a few texts from the KaTalk ID he knows as Wooyoung’s first KaTalk account, but none of them are urgent so he ignores them. He goes on a date one day after school, with a girl he remembers as being kind and smart, just coffee, because she asked him and because he remembers her as being kind and smart. It’s nice and she’s sweet but he’s just not into her. She tells him he’s a little vacant, and that she’d love to be his friend, and thank you for a nice date, but she, despite not knowing him at all, can tell he’s still over the moon for someone, and that kind of love doesn’t just go away. She doesn’t want to be someone’s second choice.

This time he doesn’t audition for KQ. He loops anyway, right at the time his first audition would have been.

-

He lands in the same spot. Wooyoung doesn’t text him this time, and he doesn’t say yes to the date with the girl. He does sit next to her, though, and asks to borrow her pencil. They eat lunch together for a week. Her name is Yeri, she’s his age, and she wants to be a screenwriter when she graduates. They exchange KaTalk IDs and San hopes he can keep talking to her for a while. 

If he loops again she won’t remember him, because in the original timeline he didn’t meet her. She didn’t ask him out before—so something about him changed. Of course he won’t be exactly the same, it’s been around three years of linear time since he was in high school, but it’s amazing what different paths a small change can reveal. A flap of butterfly wings. And that’s one of the many things that sucks about the loops. Every time they restart, he retains the memories and knowledge about others, but in their minds, they don’t know him at all. 

Wooyoung shows up at the end of the week, scowling and out of uniform. San sighs.

"You’re scaring people," he tells him, tugging on his sleeve so he’ll walk with him. He waves goodbye to a concerned Yeri. "Aren’t you supposed to have an escort when you leave your dorm for things that aren’t school?"

"You didn’t answer your phone," Wooyoung says, as if that explains everything. Maybe it does.

"I didn’t feel like it." San shrugs. "We don’t have to be together 24/7, you know."

"If this is about you liking me—"

"I _love_ you, Wooyoung," San says, because he’d come to terms with it over the years he’s been looping. Before it would have killed him to say—all the members know he’s not the most in touch with his emotions—but being alone with your thoughts and your best friend will do that to you. He knows Wooyoung will never love him like that, and that’s fine. Wooyoung loves him platonically, and that’s enough. "And no, it wasn’t about that. I just… I needed some breathing room. We’ve been looping together for—for years. I needed a break, in a body older than ten. I needed a break."

Wooyoung studies him. Stares him down a little. This is what he means, San silently tries to convey. Wooyoung can be intense, that’s just how he is as a person. And for San, being with Wooyoung doesn’t drain him as much as it would to be with anyone else, but it can still get overwhelming. 

"Okay," Wooyoung says softly. He looks away. "I get that." And he does. San can read him well enough after looping with him for so long, he’s definitely being sincere. "But can you please warn me beforehand? I thought something might’ve happened to you while I was stuck in the dorms, and if we looped again you wouldn’t be there, and I was… I was terrified, San. I can’t lose you. I’d go insane."

"Okay," San agrees. He hadn’t realized. "I’m sorry for scaring you."

"Okay," Wooyoung echos, and sticks out his hand like he’s making a super serious deal. San shakes anyway, because he’s always indulged him, and because he feels a little guilty. Wooyoung tears away with a loud laugh, yelling, "you’re it!"

San stands there for a solid second of disbelief, before chasing after him, catching him in an instant, and bolting the other way. 

"Hey!" Wooyoung protests, but San doesn’t stop, the two of them giggling together and ignoring the disgruntled looks of the adults they pass in the street. It hasn’t exactly been a while since either of them were kids, but it’s been a while since they’ve really _been_ kids. They end up playing for too long, both hurriedly sprinting for their train stations before it gets dark, and San’s parents end up scolding him and Wooyoung definitely gets in trouble with BigHit, but that’s okay.

 _Until next time,_ San sees in his phone that night, and as his vision whites out and he falls back onto his bed, he smiles.

-

("What’ll you do, when we get back to living in linear time?"

"Call my parents, probably. And tell Yunho that I appreciate him. Tell all the members I appreciate them."

"Just say you love them and go."

"Oh, shut up.")

-

Some unnamed number of loops later, San wakes up in the KQ dorms, and sits up to see Yunho squinting at him. His heart sits heavy in his stomach. "Where’s Wooyoung?" he asks.

"Who?"

That loop San does the same as he did the last time he landed there. This time he has Wooyoung’s KaTalk ID, at least, so he texts him updates sometimes and gets updates in return. 

Seonghwa joins, then Yeosang, then Jongho.

San waits. 

And waits.

 _What happened?_ He asks, well past the day Wooyoung was supposed to arrive. 

_I just wanted to know_ , Wooyoung responds, and then, _I'm sorry._

Ateez debuts as seven. A year later TXT debuts as six. 

"He still won’t talk to me," Yeosang tells San at some awards show, eyes glued to TXT’s stage. "It’s funny. I think I could have loved him if I’d stayed." San tries his best to pretend like he knows nothing about Wooyoung outside Yeosang’s stories, like there aren’t unopened texts from the man in question sitting on his phone right now, burning a hole through his pocket. "I think… I think I still love him, anyway."

San has never so badly wanted to punch his best friend in the face. Wooyoung’s lucky BigHit takes security seriously.

-

(Instead of punching him, San doesn’t talk to him for ten loops. 

"You can’t do that to him," San says to the stars, on the night where Wooyoung finally corners him with the help of their well-meaning members, who, as per reset protocol, have no idea why San’s so mad. "We might reset and he might forget, but you can’t take that as an opportunity to break his heart. Not if you really love him."

"I know," Wooyoung says. His voice is raspy. San thinks he might’ve been crying. "I made him a promise and I broke it. I know. I won’t do it again."

Wooyoung makes it up to him by both giving Yeosang a giant gummy bear unprompted, and then, later, an impromptu trip to Norway for the two of them (and an apology card to the rest of the members for leaving) in a loop where they actually make it to early 2020. They ditch Answer promotions and their phones, and go hike up a hill just outside Tromsø to see the northern lights, knowing that it won’t matter because everything will just reset, and one day they’ll wake up back in Seoul, so why not just go and see aurora in person, since they can?

It lasts a week. They wake up in Seoul, the day before Wooyoung leaves BigHit. San holds his breath. The day Wooyoung is supposed to arrive at KQ comes and goes, but the next day he shows up with yet another giant gummy bear to gift to Yeosang, who lights up like a Christmas tree. San hugs him a bit _too_ hard in greeting as payback for the scare.

"I think I love him," Yeosang tells San, whispered into the darkness of the dorm as the others sleep on around them. Some things don’t change, San supposes. 

_He loves you too,_ he wants to say, but Wooyoung would kill him, loops or not, so he doesn’t. Instead he watches as Yeosang breaks and falls, piece by piece, for an oblivious idiot who can’t see past the light of his own burning crush.) 

-

San stops looking at the comments on their videos somewhere around the time he loses track of the loops. It’s just tiring, especially when he’s seen it all before. There’s nice things, of course—he sees Atiny hyping him up and he loves them for it—but there’s a lot of hate there too. At this point… at this point who cares? He’s doing what he loves, and he’s good at it. There’s things he can improve, sure, but that doesn’t mean the hate about him is right.

Besides, the internet is weird. He’s a little scared to venture too far into the fandom, especially after he caught Wooyoug writing BTS fanfiction and had to listen to him insist—for twenty loops—that fanfiction is a legitimate literature genre. For twenty loops. Twenty. Loops. San finally caved and proofread the damn thing to shut him up and okay, if he cried in the middle at the part where Jimin and Taehyung had a big fight, then that’s between him and his high school self’s dinosaur of a Samsung phone, since the thing had to endure his ugly sobbing and late-night scrolling. 

Anyway.

The internet is weird. You couldn’t pay him enough money to search Ateez on AO3. 

"You ever wonder what we’re supposed to be doing?" San asks, quiet so he doesn’t wake up Yeosang. He and Wooyoung are cuddling on Wooyoung’s bed, because Yunho kicked him out of their room for undisclosed reasons that San’s not brave enough to ask about. "We stopped trying to figure it out pretty early in."

It’s Wave era right now, so the Woosang Tension™ hasn’t quite peaked, but it’s very noticeably there. San catches Wooyoung giving Yeosang wistful glances sometimes, when Yeosang isn’t looking, and an equal amount of the other way around, and wonders how both of them are missing it.

"Yeah," Wooyoung says. "But how are we supposed to even guess? There’s not much of a pattern, the only thing consistent is that it’s us. It’s always us."

"I wish I could remember when we started," San says. 

Wooyoung’s quiet for several very long seconds. 

San turns to look at him. "Wooyoung?"

"I think I know," he says.

San sits up. Yeosang shifts at the noise, but doesn’t wake up. "You do?" San demands. "Why didn’t you say something?"

Wooyoung turns, burying his face in his pillow. "I was talking to Yeonjun," he says. "He was trying to get me to realize something. Trying to get me to realize that I—I like—" He clearly doesn’t want to say it, seeing as the person in question is in the room. 

"So it’s… that," San says. "That’s what the loop wants?"

"Maybe," Wooyoung says. It’s muffled into the pillow. "I don’t know."

"If that’s it, why not stick you and him together in the loop? Why me?"

"I don’t know," Wooyoung repeats. "It’s not like I started it. At least, I don’t think I did?"

San’s fairly certain Wooyoung didn’t start it. Not purposefully, at least. They both would’ve noticed by now if Wooyoung had time traveling superpowers. And, according to every comic book San’s read, the loops would’ve been triggered by Wooyoung’s heightened emotional states, if it really was him and he wasn’t doing it on purpose, but there never really was a pattern or a trigger that they could find. 

"I didn’t need you to help me work through it," Wooyoung says. "I accepted it in one of the earlier loops. But I think it was easier for you to find out than it would have been for me to tell him."

"Why haven’t you confessed to him?" San asks. "You’ve accepted it, and you know when we jump everything resets. If it goes bad, he’ll forget."

"It feels wrong." Wooyoung’s not looking at him anymore, and San knows without checking that he’s watching Yeosang instead. "If I tell him and he reciprocates, and he forgets, I know something about him that he doesn’t about me. If I tell him and he doesn’t reciprocate… I don’t know. It feels wrong. I don’t want to tell him until I know he won’t forget. And it’s not really the same. _My_ Y—the 2020 version of him that we left isn’t the exact same as the version in this room, right? I don’t… I just. I love him. I love him a lot. I don’t want to fuck it up."

And that does something.

"Wooyoung," San says, slightly panicked. The tugging hasn’t been this painful since the first long trainee loop. "Shit—"

"Until next time," Wooyoung gasps, the pain audible in his voice. He groans, curling into a ball.

Yeosang sits up, groggy but half-alert. Panicked. "Wooyoung?" he asks. "Are you okay?"

"Until next time," San returns, and then.

He falls.

Asleep.

-

They come to in Wooyoung’s bed, in the same position they just left. Sunlight streams in through the previously dark window, and Yeosang’s bed is messy and unmade, Yeosang himself nowhere to be found. His sheets are white, now. They’d been blue before the jump.

They look at each other. Something feels different. Tangibly different.

"Date," San gasps, scrambling for his phone. 

Wooyoung grabs his first, almost dropping it when he sees the date. "We’re back! San, we’re back, oh my god. August 2020. We’re fucking back!"

San’s phone reads the same. "Is it over?" They stare at each other for another moment. "Did you ever say you loved him aloud, before just now?"

"No," Wooyoung groans. "Shit, was that all? We could’ve gotten out _ages_ ago, holy shit."

They take another moment to themselves before heading out to the common area, to see who else is there. And by moment, San means they sat in the room hugging for a solid fifteen minutes.

It’s just shocking. They’ve been through a lot of years, many times over, but they never get past June 2020. 

With any luck, being back in the time they left will mean that it’s over. San isn’t quite sure what to think. He wants to believe it, but if he allows himself to accept it, and later on feels the loop take hold again… 

He doesn’t want to get his hopes up.

"Oh," Jongho says, looking up from his phone as they enter the room. It’s startlingly normal. San had almost been expecting a wormhole, or something weird. "You’re back. How long were you looping for?"

And there’s the something weird he was expecting. 

Nice.

San collapses onto a chair, too tired to process any of this. Wooyoung squints at him, incredulous. "What do you mean, 'how long were you looping for'?"

If Jongho did this to them, San might actually defenestrate him, and he doesn’t want to do that because he did that then Hongjoong will get mad at him, and contrary to appearances’ sake, San doesn’t actually like it when Hongjoong’s mad at him. The leader rarely yells, instead affecting the most disappointed mom voice any of them have ever heard. Whenever Hongjoong pulls out The Voice™ San feels like one of those dogs who get shamed on the internet for eating shoes, or doing other dumb shit. It’s not a nice feeling.

"You’re back, as in, you’ve broken whatever time loop curse you got yourself stuck under. I’m just curious how long you spent in it." He shrugs exaggeratedly. "It wasn’t me, before you ask. I would have broken it for you, but there were some pretty extravagant layers to it that were specifically meant to keep me out. Someone really desperately wanted Wooyoung to figure out his shit."

vSorry, curse? What?" San asks, but Jongho’s cut off from responding. 

"Someone wanted us to—v Wooyoung starts, voice raising in both pitch and volume before he cuts himself off, face turning a concerningly sickly white. “ _Yeonjun,_ ” he growls, actually legitimately growls, and storms right out of the dorms.

San doesn’t know Yeonjun as well as Wooyoung does, and he’s not sure how well received Wooyoung alone will be showing up at the TXT dorms without notice, much less both of them together. So he opts out of that particular confrontation, instead turning to squint at Jongho. "So. Curse?"

"Magic," Jongho says, wiggling his fingers. 

San deadpans, "Seriously?"

Jongho shrugs with both palms to the ceiling, bringing down a shower of sparkles that disappear before they touch the floor. He wiggles his fingers again. "Magic."

Okay. That’s not the weirdest thing he’s seen Jongho do. Also, being in an actual time loop does pretty much eliminate all skepticism of mystic stuff. San’s spent years jumping around in his past with only Wooyoung for company. It’s not that crazy that Jongho can do sparkly magic. 

Cool. 

Everything’s fine.

San puts that particular crisis on the back burner. "So… How long have you known?"

"I remember every loop," Jongho says. He looks delighted, and San can only assume he’s thinking of the Jello Incident of Probably-Loop-69, as Wooyoung dubbed it. San was really banking on no one being able to hold that against him, but Jongho of that time had been in hysterics so as long as he doesn’t tell anyone about it, San’s hopefully still in the clear. 

And now that he’s thinking about it, every loop version of Jongho gave him the weirdest vibes. It explains a few things, including how indulgent he was of their stories in The Therapy Loop (cue dramatic shudder).

Yeah. If San had more energy, he would one-hundred percent drop kick him out the window. Jongho may be strong, but San’s pretty sure he can out-kick him. "The spell reset all your changes, don’t worry, no one else will remember anything you altered. Unless you came into contact with Hyunjin or Jisung or Soobin or—"

"2000 line, I get it," San says. "So you and your same-age friends can do magic. Is Yeonjun an exception, or…?"

"I’m fairly certain he just asked Soobin for a favor. The spell kind of tasted like his magic," Jongho says, which is kind of concerning? (Why is Jongho tasting Soobin’s magic? _How_ does one taste magic? What does magic even taste like???) But also the least of San’s worries. 

"So it’s over?" he confirms. If Jongho just gave them a false sense of hope he might actually cry. He can’t take much more looping. He misses Yunho and Mingi and Hongjoong and Seonghwa and Yeosang. And his parents. And Jongho, but only a little, because he apparently could have helped them figure out how to break the curse, but instead actively chose to watch them—not even stumble, it was worse than stumbling, they were flopping around like fish out of water. 

Wooyoung’s great, and being with Wooyoung all the time is also kind of great, but he really, really misses other people, and like. Sanity. In general. 

"It’s over," Jongho confirms, unaware of how narrowly he just avoided Danger By Taekwondo Kick. "The spell’s gone. I can’t guarantee that Wooyoung won’t come back a toad, though." His phone chimes, as if on cue. He glances at it. "My bad, Yeonjun’s bringing him back for us. Soobin turned him into a puppy."

"Of course he did," San says, covering his eyes with his hands. "Why am I not surprised…"

Jongho laughs. "In Soobin’s defense, Wooyoung does make a cute puppy."

"Ooh, are there pictures?"

-

The dog spell wears off before the other members come home. According to Jongho, he and Wooyoung have only been missing for a day, but they didn’t have much of a schedule so Hongjoong had just assumed they were off together for a break. 

When Wooyoung sees Yeosang, he lights up. "Sangie!" he crows, and nearly crushes him in a hug. Poor Yeosang is completely taken off guard, patting Wooyoung’s back with wide eyes, looking to San for help with an expression equivalent to a giant question mark. 

"He missed you," San says, smiling fondly, and that’s the understatement of the century. 

"Aw," Yeosang says, finally hugging Wooyoung back. The affection is painfully visible in his eyes, San kind of wants to mime puking, but Yeosang doesn’t know that he knows because he confided in him in a loop, so he refrains. "I missed you too."

Jongho rolls his eyes. San elbows him, because those are _his_ best friends, no one’s allowed to make fun of their dumb asses but him. Jongho wheezes, and waves off the other members’ concern. "Do _you_ want to be a toad for a day?" he mumbles, probably in an attempt to be threatening, but San just grins. 

"Nothing you do can phase me anymore," he says. 

Jongho sighs. 

Life goes back to normal after that, or as normal as it can be. Wooyoung and San tell the others about the time loop, and force Jongho to do some spell to prove they didn’t just have a shared hallucination. (San shudders at the remembrance of The Therapy Loop.) Jongho, because he’s a brat, chooses to turn Hongjoong into a cat. San carefully does not ask why ‘00 line has an affinity for turning people into animals. If he did, Jongho would tell the ‘00 group chat, and TXT’s gotten enough furry jokes that he’s pretty sure Soobin would actually take offense. San’s had enough of curses, thank you very much.

"I feel violated," Hongjoong says when he can talk again, and then has to reassure Jongho about a million times that it was a _joke_ he promises, Jongho didn’t hurt him and he _did_ say yes when Jongho asked if he could, it’s not Jongho’s fault Hongjoong didn’t believe him.

Then Wooyoung has to explain _why,_ exactly, they got stuck in a time loop, and he does it honestly and with his eyes glued to the floor. Yeosang stands wordlessly, at the end, and Wooyoung shrinks back but Yeosang pulls him up and into a hug. He whispers something—San can’t hear it, he doubts anyone else can either, and he slaps down Jongho’s hand before he can cast what was probably an eavesdropping spell—and Wooyoung just… melts. 

Yeosang turns to San after, and San’s expecting expectance, he’s expecting Yeosang to want him to talk first, but instead he pulls him up too and wraps him in a hug, and says, "I’m sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry for," San tells him. "I’m happy for you. You deserve this." There’s no bad blood there. San still loves Wooyoung—it’ll take a while until he doesn’t—but he can’t fault Yeosang for loving Wooyoung too. Besides, they’re friends, and there was never any resentment between them over Wooyoung’s friendship, so San’s not going to let a feud start now over romance. He still refuses to let this turn into a kdrama. Wooyoung tells him it kind of already was a kdrama from the start, but San elects to ignore that.

Months pass, with no tug in their guts, no next times. They wrap up promotions and talk about tour. Wooyoung and Yeosang go on a couple of dates before they start saying they’re dating, and Yeonjun comes by with Soobin to gloat about his plan being a success. 

Wooyoung turns to look at Jongho in askance, and Jongho grins and turns Yeonjun into a bunny. 

They’re expecting retaliation, but Soobin just laughs and picks him up. "That’s fair," he says. "He can get a bit annoying after a while." Yeonjun the Bunny tries to bite him, but a spray of water hits his face out of nowhere. He retreats into a ball, wet and disgruntled. "No. Bad bunny," Soobin scolds. Yeonjun pouts.

Time keeps moving forward, linear, and eventually Wooyoung and San relax into it. Wooyoung and Yeosang get serious. San’s comfortable now, and his love doesn’t fade but it changes, shifting into deep affection rather than romantic interest. 

They perform live for the first time in months and at the end, they’re all emotional because they’ve missed this, they really have, and San says without thinking, "Until next time, Atiny!"

He startles, surprised by his own words. Wooyoung comes up behind him. They’ve spent long enough in that time loop that they know each other, inside and out, so San can see him start to cry before the tears start building up in his eyes. He hugs him, and across the stage Yeosang smiles, fond, and lets them have their moment.

Wooyoung brings his mic up without letting go. "Until next time!"

-

epilogue.

"Hey," Hyunjin says, waving at San from the couch. 

Oh shit.

San stops short, alarm bells going off in his head, as they do now whenever he’s around anyone born in 2000. "Uhh?" He responds intelligently. 

He just wanted breakfast. That’s not too much to ask for, right? Just. A normal breakfast.

"I’m just waiting for Jongho," Hyunjin assures him. "He said something about changing his clothes."

Jongho speeds around the corner, not bothering to stop when he yanks Hyunjin up and off the couch. "I didn’t say MY clothes," he yells over his shoulder, and he’s not even winded, how is that fair? 

Hongjoong appears in the doorway, face red. "Jongho!" he screeches. He’s wearing a skirt. "Can I not have ONE pair of pants?"

"I'm giving the fans what they want, hyung! And they want you in skirts!" Jongho shouts back. 

"Bye!" Hyunjin says cheerfully before the door shuts in his face, Jongho still towing him away as fast as he can. Which is actually very fast.

Hongjoong groans and slumps onto the spot Hyunjin vacated. "That kid."

"That kid," San agrees, and takes this as a sign to abandon breakfast in favor of heading back to bed. It’s too early for whatever just happened. He’ll process it when he wakes up.

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted so badly to write 00 line being an otn coven but this is a woosang/woosan story dammit
> 
> also i lack familiarity with tbz and golden child and ab6ix, unfortunately, and going by their actual group chat thats who i should be writing (yes i know soobin’s not in it but it made more sense to me for yeonjun to ask soobin to do this than changbin to ask any of skz’s 00s)
> 
> on that note though i Will write a series of one shots about various 00 liners being chaotic witches if anyone asks. i just need someone to enable me lol


End file.
